The Broker Who Would Not Bundle
Year: 2007
Type: preprint
Abstract: Online reputation systems are a challenge to design. They often require large user-bases to frequently and honestly rate content and users. Although this is a daunting problem, reputation systems can help to alleviate the “cheap pseudonym” problem. One way to make it easier to create and sustain a reputation system is to share information about the identity of users between web sites. We report on some of the obstacles to such a user identity marketplace. In particular, we find that the brokers needed to would serve as intermediaries in the marketplace have incentives that do not align with the firms that want to trade identity information. More specifically, the individual firms would benefit if the brokers created bundles, but these bundles would reduce the broker’s profitability. Therefore, the brokers will not bundle the information goods.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Authors: Kurtis DeMaagd, Cliff Lampe
Institutions: Michigan State University, University of Michigan
Language: English
Subfield: Strategy and Management
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2282606867